The 2015 class of Master’s degree and PhD students are out there reading and reading and getting those research proposals ready. Our previous resources post gave a few writing tips to go along with what they are learning at the writing school. This post has a few more links to keep you thinking:

Quartz had an interesting post that compares the style guides of Bloomberg News and The Economist. They throw in a few timeless rules at the end:

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

We also discovered this post on policy vs academic jobs in Economics. The differences in jobs also speaks to differences in how you would write for these audiences. Students are often excited about making practical contributions with their research, solving some problem out there in the real world. But a good dissertation or thesis will convince and impress other academics: novel perspectives or methods are at a premium. These days the direction of effect is everything. It is worth reading the post and thinking about what you are pitching at the colloquium.